USS Missouri (BB-63)

USS Missouri at sea in her 1980s configuration
History
United States
Namesake:	The State of Missouri
Ordered:	12 June 1940
Builder:	Brooklyn Navy Yard
Laid down:	6 January 1941
Launched:	29 January 1944
Sponsored by:	Mary Margaret Truman
Commissioned:	11 June 1944
Decommissioned:	26 February 1955
Recommissioned:	10 May 1986
Decommissioned:	31 March 1992
Struck:	12 January 1995
Identification:	Hull symbol: BB-63
Motto:	"Strength for Freedom"
Nickname(s):	"Mighty Mo" or "Big Mo"
Honors and awards:	11 battle stars World War II Korean War Gulf War
Status:	Museum ship in Pearl Harbor
Notes:	Final battleship to be completed by the United States
Badge:
General characteristics (1943)
Class and type:	Iowa-class battleship
Displacement:	45,000 tons
Length:	887.2 ft (270.4 m)
Beam:	108.2 ft (33.0 m)
Draft:	28.9 ft (8.8 m)
Speed:	32.7 kn (37.6 mph; 60.6 km/h)
Range:	14,890 mi (23,960 km)
Complement:	2,700 officers and men
Armament:	9 × 16 in (406 mm)/50 cal Mark 7 guns 20 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal Mark 12 guns 80 × 40 mm/56 cal anti-aircraft guns 49 × 20 mm/70 cal anti-aircraft cannons
Armor:	Belt: 12.1 in (310 mm) Bulkheads: 11.3 in (290 mm) Barbettes: 11.6 to 17.3 in (290 to 440 mm) Turrets: 19.7 in (500 mm) Decks: 7.5 in (190 mm)
General characteristics (1984)
Class and type:	Iowa-class battleship
Complement:	1,851 officers and men
Sensors and processing systems:	AN/SPS-49 Air Search Radar AN/SPS-67 Surface Search Radar AN/SPQ-9 Surface Search / Gun Fire Control Radar
Electronic warfare & decoys:	AN/SLQ-32 AN/SLQ-25 Nixie Decoy System 8 × Mark 36 SRBOC Super Rapid Bloom Rocket Launchers
Armament:	9 × 16 in (406 mm)/50 cal Mark 7 guns 12 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal Mark 12 guns 32 × BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles 16 × RGM-84 Harpoon Anti-Ship missiles 4 × 20 mm/76 cal Phalanx CIWS
USS Missouri (BB-63)
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
Coordinates	21°21′44″N 157°57′12″W / 21.36222°N 157.95333°W / 21.36222; -157.95333Coordinates: 21°21′44″N 157°57′12″W / 21.36222°N 157.95333°W / 21.36222; -157.95333
Built	1944
Architect	New York Naval Shipyard
NRHP Reference #	71000877
Added to NRHP	14 May 1971

USS Missouri (BB-63) ("Mighty Mo" or "Big Mo") is a United States Navy Iowa-class battleship and was the third ship of the U.S. Navy to be named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. Missouri was the last battleship commissioned by the United States and was best remembered as the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II.

Missouri was ordered in 1940 and commissioned in June 1944. In the Pacific Theater of World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, and she fought in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. She was decommissioned in 1955 into the United States Navy reserve fleets (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and provided fire support during Operation Desert Storm in January/February 1991.

Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until her name was struck in January 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor.

Missouri was one of the Iowa-class "fast battleship" designs planned in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of Construction and Repair. She was laid down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 6 January 1941, launched on 29 January 1944 and commissioned on 11 June with Captain William Callaghan in command. The ship was the third of the Iowa class, but the fourth and final Iowa-class ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy. The ship was christened at her launching by Mary Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry S. Truman, then a United States Senator from Missouri.